Zach's Blonde Moment

08 Korsakow Concept

This week in IM1, we were put into our groups again for our final end of semester Korsakow project, where we must collaborate once again and produce one single work together, creating the videos and the K-Film itself. For some reason I thought this was an individual project, but I was wrong, which is OK, because I like working in groups and feeling as though I am part of a ‘team’. Anyway, in this weeks tute we went through an exercise, where we brainstormed our ideas onto blank paper based on a the type of K-Film we were going to go for (Fiction, Documentary, Song/Lyrical etc.) and how we were going to communicate this (The text, Tactical Creativity, Poly-vocal video and so on…), then we grouped the words that we had brainstormed into little “islands” of words, and hey presto, we have a “K-film”.

At first, I struggled severely with this task. Maybe is was because I was a little tired, but I was stubborn to this method of thinking in a childish manor. This is something I have to work on overcoming, I have to force myself to adhere to new approaches and new ways of thinking, otherwise I will not expand my mind and I will not begin to produce content that is original and unique to that of which I have produced in the past. Anyway, I think the real reason why I was stubborn to this approach was because I already had several concrete concepts that I had formed in my mind and when we were told to start from square one, it threw me a little. I had already passed square one and was beginning to get into the next stage of production, yet I was forced to go back to square one and start again. I think this was the problem, but it really isn’t much of a problem though is it? I mean, at the end of the day I have got nothing to lose (other than discovering a new idea that I want to undertake and abandoning my old one, yet this will most likely be better than my previous one), therefore I might as well go through the motions and just maybe I will end up solidifying my original idea even further.

Anyway, I presented my idea to the group and they seemed to like it. This was it:

All the videos will be of one (or many) actors framed in the same way against the same backdrop and each of them will perform something based on a particular emotion that is directed to them (such as if they were unhappy, they would show that they are unhappy in their expression, or maybe they will say something spontaneously about being in an unhappy state or an experience that has happened to them, which made them unhappy.) Then these videos will be compiled into the K-Film and related to each other based on the emotional connection (such as unhappy may be linked with depressed etc.) Then the K-Film’s structure itself will revolve around the concept of “Discovering Happiness”, where the viewer will begin at a video, where the actor is crying severely and maybe discussing how she is going to attempt to kill herself (I know it’s a tad dark, but trust me, it lightens up!), then it is up to the viewer as to what videos they will click on next, as they slowly begin to “find happiness”, which will be the be the end film (probably the actor laughing historically and stating how she or he is in an utter state of happiness). The viewer will feel as though they are controlling their journey and discovering happiness for themselves (which, in a way, they are), yet they will be guided along the way through the beauty of the Korsakow keywords, which means they will inevitably reach Happiness, it is just up to them as to how long it will take them. The point is, it will be fairly clear to that viewer that the concept of the film is to discover happiness, which is something that I had wanted: clarity. I want the film to make sense. Even though the song-like, lyrical pieces are quite beautiful, I am determined to make my “fiction” film work. I believe that it will work as well!

Anyway as I was saying, I presented this idea to the group and they seemed to like it, therefore we began to develop it further by discussing how we could have the actor expression the emotion in their face and using that video for the thumbnails themselves, then we could have the video link to a documentary-style video that would showcase the emotion in a way that could be abstract or fairly literal. At this point Adrian came over and we presented this idea to him, he said that is wouldn’t work. We had a little mental cry and asked why. He said that is wouldn’t work because of the “(I forgot the name of it)” method, where an image of an actor expressing a particular emotion may be seen as many different emotions to different people, or may be changed based on the image that you juxtapose the expression with. We agreed. Instead he suggested the idea that I had originally come up with (of just one single actor in front of the same backdrop with the same framing etc.). We agreed on doing this.

So it was set! This is our concept, we have our shooting date, we have our actor and we are ready to get cracking!

We also have a meeting on Wednesday after our assessment meeting of our first Korsakow projects, therefore in this meeting we will discuss our concept and refine it further plus work on some pre-production stuff such as production design and scheduling. I will make a blog post that will reflect all this once we have the meeting. In the meantime, click here.

08 Actor Directing

This week (or should I say, last week) in our Film/TV1 lecture, we were lucky to have Darcy Yuille come in as our guest lecturer and provide us with some great great information in regards to actor directing. I found this information extremely useful, not only because I was put in the role as director for the production of our short film, but also because it was just a great lecture and the information provided I will definitely utilize in my career.

He began the lecture by teaching us the appropriate way to hold an audition. As my group had already done auditions, it was interesting to see what I did wrong and what it was that I could improve on in terms of directing an audition. First of all, and most importantly, he explained the you must find out how the actor works before you impose any direction, as the actor may know certain methods of direction or may not. Basically, if you are not on a common ground with the actor in the language that is utilized for the direction, they will often find themselves not understanding certain things and the direction will not be communicated properly. Therefore, it is important to let the actor state the method that they are most comfortable with, because at the end of the day, they are the ones performing the take, not you…so you must comply with their method. This is something I hadn’t really done in the auditions that I had conducted for Pipe Dream, as I had only really asked them about interests/experiences, delved into character descriptions and then made them read. After they read I directed them as to how I wanted them to alter their performance based on my vision, yet I had done so without asking as to the way in which they best prefer to be directed. My bad. Shall do so in the future!

The next part in conducting the audition that he mentioned is to give the actor information in regards to the character’s overall objective. The overall objective is what the character wants in the story- his or her main goal throughout the entire film. Then you must give them the scene objective, which is what hey need to know in order to perform this particular scene. I think that I made sure the actors that we had auditioned knew these aspects about the characters, as I had made sure they were clear on the fact that Mallory’s main objective is to get the ring back to Alysa in the film and in the scene that I had auditioned them for (the ring falling down the sink), I had made sure they were clear on the fact that Mallory ‘s objective in this scene is to get the ring out of the sink when it falls into it. Even though I had done this, it is good to know that it is essential to do this in all auditions, which is something I will make sure I do in all auditions that I conduct in the future.

The next part in the audition (and this also applies to when you are directing actors in the production of the actual film- on location/set etc.) is to direct the actor in terms of the actions they have to take to perform the scene based on the scene’s objective. This is when you must use your verbs! Darcy has provided a nice big down-loadable list of verbs, which acts as a universal language that all actors will be able to comprehend. Instead of telling the actor to perform in a certain way, acting out  certain actions myself (which I had mistakenly done in some of the auditions), I must remain as “Zach”, who is stationary and composed, as I direct using these verbs, which allow the actor to take on the character based on these verbs for themselves without copying my action that I had performed. They must encompass the character, not copy the performed character of someone else. Therefore, when auditioning the character of Alysa, for example, I could use the verbs “boast” and “impress” in or to direct the actor as to how I want Alysa’s lines to be performed, then if it became a little to “bitchy”, I could then use the verb “savor”, which may let the actor know that Alysa is trying to impress Mallory, yet she savors the moment and the attention rather than brushing Mallory off in a bitchy way, which some of the actors may assume is what Alysa is trying to do. (This is just an example though, so it’s not really how Alysa is meant to perform her lines.)

So, yeah…point is…use verbs. They are good.

Darcy then discussed the ‘Beat’. This is not a ‘beat’, which you would see in a script (which represents a short pause). It is referring to a change in the actors actions (such as when they change from “charming” to “seducing” etc. This change is extremely important and Darcy kept referring back to it as the moment that you must make sure a camera is on the actor as this change is taking place.

Here is an example from my short film, Hal Jay Thames, Musician Extraordinaire, where a beat is taking place:

In this particular scene, Hal (the guy) is giving Holly (the girl) a grilling in regards to her inability to keep a job. In the first frame she is feeling a little bit guilty but at the same time she doesn’t really care, so she was directed based on her expression, but no verbs were used, as she is not taking any action. Yet for the second frame, she “denies” and “defends” after Hal says that they are poor. We see a change in her expression, which is the ‘beat’.

Describing Characters

Darcy then discussed the ‘Laban’ method of describing characters. This centers around the way in which a character holds themselves (posture, stance, expression etc.) and involves a classification based on four different categories of description, where there are two options in each category, both being polar opposites of each other. You may classify your character by choosing one of each of the two words in each category below:

Heavy or Light

Hard or Soft

Direct or Indirect

Fast or Slow

These are great words that you can use to help describe your character, and the actor will most likely know these terms and really appreciate that you are using them. For more information about each term, just Google the Laban method! (Or attend the lecture.)

07 Lighting

Thought I would make a post about the week 7 lecture before we actually have the week 8 one (my bad).

I won’t ramble on for too long, so here are some main points that I found were quite interesting and had written down in the lecture:

You are doing lighting even if you do not plug in any lights- as soon as you start shooting, there will be light coming through the camera lens, whether it is good or bad. The cinematographer is constructing lighting by simply choosing the location that would be appropriate. Eg. Moving into the shade in order to get rid of the sun’s harshness is an act of constructing good lighting for your shot.

The real way you’re able to control the aesthetic of the image is through the lighting.

The softer the light, the more it wraps around the human face.

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I will make a post about lighting next week, deconstructing some scenes as well. But I would just like to reflect for a moment on the first point, which was how you are doing lighting by simply choosing a location. The act of constructing lighting for a particular shot is not entirely about setting up artificial lighting- it can be something as simple as opening the blinds of a window. This is something I wasn’t actually aware of and found it completely interesting.

08 Lenny II

Round two!

This time around, we got given a script, went out and filmed it, then had to edit it all together! I do realize there are some massive continuity problems, such as Emma (the girl in the video) is standing beside me (the guy in the video )in my shot, but then she is standing in front of me in the reverse shot. Then there is the whole “me wearing my shirt around the other way so it looked plain black” thing, which posed a great continuity problem when I thought we had finished, turned the shirt around so my print was facing the front, then we decided to film another shot. Hey presto- a magic shirt that reveals a print between edits! Despite this, I think we did pretty well for the amount of time that we had to shoot it in!

Enjoy.

Lenny Exercise #2 from Zachary McSweeney on Vimeo.

08 IM Lecture

The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life - Lev Manovich

In this week’s lecture, Adrian pulled apart the reading above, expanding on certain sections of it. Here are some points that I found interesting:

YouTube is in thrall of big media- it wants to be big like TV, but it doesn’t exactly cut it. You can rebroadcast anything from YouTube on TV and it still works the same, but with social media such as blogging- it is literature that doesn’t look like literature. You cannot extract something from a blog and place it in a static, close-ended literature, as it doesn’t fit that mould anymore.

Adrian then spoke about blogging as a way of creating content in a cheap way, as the most expensive thing in retail in shelf space. The space on the internet is virtually limitless, you may have to purchase a domain etc. but at the end of the day it is virtually free for you too fill it up with whatever you like and however much of it that you like! As long as you be yourself and write about something you know, there will always be a reader, whether you know there is or not.

Here’s a random hovering cat:

Anyway, back to the lecture (before I got distracted from funny pictures). He then spoke about RSS in terms of Syndication, relating an example from his real life, where throughout the duration of his time at RMIT, his URL for his website has changed 7 times. He therefore created an about me page on his current website that links to all his twitter, posterous,  linkedin and wordpress feeds, displaying them all in one location. This is syndication. In the 90′s we treated the internet as traditional broadcast, with static, unlinked web-pages. Today, the format has changed, where the content is porous, linked and blended in with each other all across the internet, allowing for this collection and exchange of information and syndication.

He then brought up the point that new media is beginning to question and challenge traditional media, which is mainly due to the internet. This is why we are doing a Korsakow film in this course, because it’s a medium that unwillingly challenges the conventions of traditional medium and establishes a new tactic, a new way of creating content. Whether it becomes popular or not, it represents many new forms of technology coming out today that challenge this constantly.

07 My Delicious Bookmarks 21-3-11 to 17-3-11

Ok I have been a bit slack with the whole delicious post thing. Shall have to review my participation soon, as even though I am working quite a lot in this subject, I seem to not be meeting the criteria I have set for myself! Shall do this tomorrow I think. Anyway here are 5 of my most recent bookmarks.

• The Death of Social Media: Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms – Social media comes in many forms and flavors with new types coming in and some older ones slowly dying out. It has become so ubiquitous that we rarely think about it when we use it.

• Twitter’s Dilemma: Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms – Twitter is battling scalability problems, churn in its user community, formidable competition and no revenue base. While Twitter clearly needs to monetize, the question is, has it waited too long? Time will tell.

• Mapping Online Publics

• Observations on film art

• Korsakow – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – The Korsakow System (Pronounced ‘KOR-SA-KOV’) is open source software designed to allow users to generate database cinema. Created in 2000 by Berlin-based artist, Florian Thalhofer, Korsakow allows users with or without any programming expertise to create and interact with non-linear or database video narratives referred to as K-Films. The software can be used to produce documentary, experimental and fictional narrative works and has been integrated in to live performance and installation pieces. Korsakow is free for small projects and educational use. Potential users with production budgets over $6,500 (€5,000) are asked to contact the makers of the software first.

Ignore that last bookmark. I bookmarked it to remind me of Korsakow’s awesome little history. Have a read if you have the time, it’s quite interesting how they got started and where their ideas came from etc.

07 Casting

Casting is a bitch. If you have gone through casting before you will know why. Sometimes it is easy to cast someone, as you will either have someone who stands out and fits the character perfectly, which it is then easy to pick them for the role, or you will have one mediocre actor who is up against 10 or so terrible actors, in which case you pick the mediocre actor in the hope that you can train them up to fit the desired role well.

However, most of the time, you will be sitting there for a while, trying to decide who to cast in the hope that you make the right decision. For the short film we had shot over summer, Hal Jay Thames, Musician Extraordinaire, our casting process was fairly simple for most of the characters, as we had the right people walk through the door, but for two of the characters, it was a little bit of a different story.

For one, myself and the director were fighting it out for the actor who we thought would be best for one of the roles, my choice being an actor that hadn’t fit the character exactly as we had imagined, but he had brought something interesting to the audition that would make the character more interesting and dynamic. Then there was the directors choice, which fit the character perfectly. In the end he had convinced me to pick his option, which turned out for the better as I couldn’t imagine the role being played by anyone else now! He just fit the character so well. We ended up deliberating for about an hour over who out of these two actors that we would cast, which drove us insane!

The other problem we had faced was deciding who to pick as the main character, Hal. We had many young, good looking guys rock up that gave a great reading, but they really weren’t what we were looking for. We had the vision in our minds that Hal would be a dopey character that kind of went along with the flow of life, which was a quality we had seen in one particular actor that didn’t give the best reading. He was nervous and messed up a few of his lines, but after watching his audition over and over and over, we saw something there that we could work with. In the end, he was utterly perfect for the role, his acting had become better over rehearsals and the dopey side emerged, which is what we originally though was just bad acting- it was dopiness!

Casting was actually quite easy for out film, as we had a great reading from one of the particular actors who read for our Alysa character. She fit the role perfectly image-wise and I have actually worked with her before on Hal Jay Thames, Musician Extraordinaire, so I knew she was great to work with and understood my direction extremely well. As for our Mallory character, that was the more difficult one to cast, as we had many great actors read for her part, which were all so different and it would affect the entire film completely if we were to pick an actor that turned out not to ‘bring it’. So what we did is we whittled down our actors to three options, which we then compared alongside who we were casting as our Alysa, which we found was a great way to decide, as the chemistry between Alysa and Mallory is vital for the story to make any sense! In the end, we ended up casting a great little actress who looked great, sounded great, is believable in the role of Mallory, who has the right chemistry with Alysa (As in, she was smaller and more vulnerable so she could be dominated by Alysa’s character) and who sounded great and had a lot of energy and was likable. The list can go on!

I guess my point is, you will learn the best way of casting once you get into it (and how difficult it is putting wonderfully nice and talented actors into a “NO” pile.) It was also always change depending on your circumstances. I think my #1 rule is: Always cast actors alongside the other actors that you have already cast, compare and analyze closely, zoom in on their faces and see how they look on camera (as they will look and sound and seem different on camera as what you had seen in the audition almost always! Oh, and film your auditions- that is super important!) and if you need to take your time to think about who to cast, take as long as is necessary.

07 Why is sound important?

This is why. Just watch the video and you will go, “Ohhh…that’s why!” Trust me.

07 Costume Design

One of the most important aspects of any film is the costume design. As I had taken on the role of deciding what our characters were to wear in the short film that we have to produce in Film/TV1, I thought it would be necessary to make a post about it!

As I was dealing with a comedy centered around two upper-class women set in the present day, it wasn’t very difficult for me to decide what these characters should wear (It would have been harder if we were doing a period piece- I would have to make sure the costumes had a solid historical representation). So I did the same thing that I did when deciding on the type of location that we would be looking for: I defined my vision first- then I located the particular element that is needed for this vision. In this case, I defined my vision on what each character should wear. I have put my vision for the character of “Mallory” below:

COSTUME #1 (Scene 1-2)

As Mallory’s apartment will be mainly white/cream coloured with a few accent pinks/reds and warmer colours, she will be dressed in white/cream with similar accessories to the apartment’s accent colours. This will indicate to the viewer that this space belongs to Mallory. Alysa, wearing her bright contrasting colours and over-the-top accessories, will stand out in the apartment as a dominating figure.

Mallory is fashionable, whimsical and flirtatious. From the images of these outfits shown overleaf, you will get a feel for Mallory’s style, in which she never leaves the house (or her bedroom) without her designer heels and excessive jewellery. Nothing is ever “casual” for Mallory (despite the first costume option), as she believes that she must look her utmost best as all times just incase her prospective fiancé comes walking around the corner. She generally prefers a cute, short dress with a tailored blazer when the weather is neither warm nor cold.

In the warmer seasons, she will opt for a simple summer dress, or a short skirt and loose top, brought in with a belt. If this is the case, she will always compensate for the lack of layers by applying more accessories, from extra jewellery and bangles to oversize clutches and brimmed hats. In the colder seasons, she will still wear her loose, short and whimsical dresses, yet she will layer this with stockings and wear a blazer or cropped knit jacket over the top.

So what shall we have her wear for costume #1 in the film? This is the big question. First of all, for whatever she does wear, it must be linked to her apartment in some way or another in order to really establish the relationship that she has with her own space. Then this will enhance Alysa’s dominating entrance, where she will stand out as though she doesn’t belong in that setting.

Therefore, nothing is really set in stone for now. But based on the costume profiling, there will be a substantial amount of options that we can try out and see what works best. We will be scheduling a date for our stylist to come in and try out a few different costume options before costumes are secured. It will really be a “see what works best” kind of thing.

Now that my vision is defined, it is time to start looking for pictures/outfits that match this vision.

I happened to stumble across a great website, called LookBook, where you can scroll through an infinite number of pictures of real people who have submitted images of an outfit they have created. It’s a quick and easy way of finding something that looks similar to what you are trying to look for in terms of what you want your character to wear. This website is particularly good for present-day set films with the majority of the characters being women.

Here is the pictures that I have found on the website, that I think best represent the vision that I had for that character of Mallory:

COSTUME #2 option (Scene 3-[action sequence]- 6)

This costume is almost practically set in stone. We first see its emergence when Mallory is getting ready to depart on her mission to get a replacement ring and instead of putting on runners and a jacket, she locates her black, knee-high heels, with her black cropped trench coat. She has now transformed herself into a superhero-spy who is ready for action.

Then after you have gone through that process of defining your vision for each character, the next step is sourcing the costumes! This could be easy, or it could be hard depending on the specificity of your vision. Remember: you can always change your vision if you have trouble with this part!

07 Locations

These notes were also in my production design notes that were handed in with the portfolio, but fellow directors/production designers/producers/location scouters may find this information useful. My #1 rule before locating a location: define your vision specifically and then locate a location that matches this vision (The majority of the time you will find a location that fit, otherwise worse comes to worse you just change up your vision!)

Locations

• The Interior of the House

My main philosophy when it came to the production design, was to make the film as visually appealing as possible, which will include many different objects placed in the locations in order to enhance their visual aspect, an injection of vibrant colour and well thought out costumes and make-up artistry.

In terms of the Interior of the house, we have located a big spacious, beautiful apartment with lots of lighting, which is exactly what I wanted. My inspiration for this had also come from the Secret Diary of a Call Girl (surprisingly), as you can see from the shots below. It is a simple, yet sophisticated kitchen that suggests that Mallory is well off and living on her own.

As you can see from the location we have secured above, the kitchen is somewhat similar to that of what had inspired me. It is lacking a refrigerator and appliances, which will be put in later on this week, but the main focus now is how we are going to set-dress this location in order to reflect Mallory’s personality and class.

First of all I was thinking of creating an accent colour, such as red (which will create a warm look to the house) or a purple (which will reflect the bubbly side to Mallory’s personality), either way there will be flowers, paintings, décor and kitchen utensils that will all share this similar colour scheme, adding colour to the setting and adding some depth to the shots.

• The Exterior of the House

The exterior of the house that I had in my head is pretty self-explanatory based on the image I have below. I am thinking of typical suburban townhouse, which indicates to the audience that the person living there is quite well off. We have a few different options for this location, which fit the mould, so I am not too worried about this location. What will really be the test is finding something like this (picture below), which is in close vicinity to the location we have for our kitchen, which is in Kingsville (western suburbs of Melbourne). If the location doesn’t have a good amount of foliage, then we will have to bring in some pot plants and decorate the exterior a little more in order to get more colour into the shots.

• The Streets (Action Sequence)

As the exterior of the house is suburban, we will need to locate some suburban streets, which there are plenty of around some of our location options for the exterior of the house. The next step will be getting council permission to film in these locations. My initial thoughts on this scene, was to enhance the saturation in order to compensate for the colour we would have lost from the first scene inside the house (inside house scenes can generally lack colour). So the picture overleaf was my main inspiration for this scene, however this vision has now changed (yet this option is still here so it can be tested out in post-production through colour grading). Instead of the saturation you see in the image, we are going to de-saturate the footage significantly, bump up the contrast and place a green/blue filter over the it in post-production. This will create a gritty “action-film” look to the footage, which will reflect the “Hollywood-film” mentality that Mallory is experiencing at that time.

Here is my new vision- a more desaturated look, which has a strong contrast and a blue/green filter. From this, I can still sneak the colour into it through the mise-en-scene, as you can see in this image, they have chosen a location with bright green foliage and dressed the actor on the left in pink, with purple streaks through her hair. I think we will use this technique in order to still inject colour into the film.

So what kind of location are we after and how will we dress this location? Well I have found a few great little alleyways around near the Kingsville (Kitchen) location:

There are films and music videos shot here all the time, so I think it could be relatively easy to get council permission to use these locations. I think they will be great for the action sequence, as they have a great visual aesthetic through colour and an earthy quality. They also have a great depth to them, which will provide a nice change from all the flat shots that we will have in the apartment scene. I don’t think we would need to do any set dressing at all to this location apart from drawing a hopscotch game on the ground in chalk (for the hopscotch joke in the film).

I think along with some general shots of Mallory running down different streets, these locations will help to strengthen the action sequence. During this scene, we will also have Mallory dressed in full black (refer to production design notes on Mallory’s character), which will add to the grittiness of this scene.

• The Jewellers

My vision for the jewellers was pretty much something small, cute, local and vulnerable. We haven’t found any location for this yet, but I have found a few shop exteriors that I think would look great as a jewellers if we were to shove a sign on their window and a few pieces of jewellery on display. Here is a location that I think would fit perfectly (with the changes required to make it look like a jewellers), which is close to the Kingsville (kitchen) location and features 2 stores next to each other, but singled out from any other store on the street, which means we can turn one shop into the jewellers and the other shop into the bookstore! Perfect.